1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for an interface that provides a communication and caching protocol design by which snapshot data is retrieved from a digital video server.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many devices capture and digitally store video sequences and ancillary data such as time codes or point-of-sale information. These types of video and ancillary data may be referred to collectively as “video data” or “video sequences”. Unfortunately, these video sequences may consume large amounts of digital storage space. Therefore, it is often required that these video sequences be stored digitally on a device that is physically nearby the digital video input device, such as a camera, so that it is not necessary to transmit the data via network links which may operate at a slow transmission rate. However, a user may not always be able to be in close proximity to the video input device when the user wishes to view the video sequence. Namely, the user may wish to view portions of the saved video data from a remote location over a network communication system. A need therefore exists for enabling a user to rapidly locate the portions of data the user wishes and to view the video data captured by the video input device, while minimizing the amount of information that needs to be transmitted.